


Sweet Music Playing in the Dark (Be Still, My Foolish Heart)

by Froggiest



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: A little bit of angst, Bathing/Washing, Fluff, Just Jon and Martin taking a break, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, MAG180, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Upton House Break, post mag180, this is just self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26646514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Froggiest/pseuds/Froggiest
Summary: They may not know the dangers of Upton House, but just for a minute, they can at least enjoy it.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 8
Kudos: 116





	Sweet Music Playing in the Dark (Be Still, My Foolish Heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Johnny Sims: This big idyllic house with evil people in it surely is not a trap  
> Me: You are right this is just Jonmartin cuddle time!

When Jon wakes up, for the briefest moment, his mind is entirely quiet. Blissful and agonizing at the same time, it teeters between the peace of leaving a loud room, and the horror of a phantom pain in a missing limb. Like losing something you never wanted to have. Then his omniscience returns, a little like coming up for air in a pool. Still, there’s something missing, and Jon opens one eye, trying to piece together his thoughts enough to understand what has happened. He remembers entering Upton House (if it was Upton House? It felt so familiar.) with Martin and Annabelle Cane. He remembers, ridiculously, Mikaele Salesa…playing the piano? He wonders if he might have hit his head, but it makes no sense. They arrived, and suddenly he could feel all that hunger, the tiredness, the exhaustion from traveling. He remembers fainting, and now he’s staring up at a decadent canopy, laying on what feels like thousand thread sheets, and subconsciously he reaches to the other side of it, finding it empty. The sheets on that side are untouched. Where’s Martin?

_Shit. Where’s Martin?_

Despite the ache in his leg, that he notes in the back of his mind is so much worse now than before, the effort of throwing the sheets off him and getting out of the room feels nigh non-existent, compared to the fear that is now seeping into his skin. He is slowed minutely by the fact that he suddenly has _needs_ , though. He’s starving, and he’s parched, he is a lot of things, but it all dims in the face of his biggest fear; he’s lost Martin. Co-dependence does not come close to the emotion Jon is feeling, now. It isn’t even within the same ballpark.

The halls of what he now confirms must be Upton House, he recognizes a part of it from when he was young, are winding and confusing, unforgiving of his wrong turns in a way that reminds him of the spiral. It throws his thoughts into the darker part of his mind, the part that is still worried he should have listened to Martin. Maybe he was wrong, maybe they are in another domain where Jon can’t even see enough to know how to get them out, and maybe this is truly the end of the line for them, the part where he has to lose Martin for good because he was so blinded for a second by his own stupid _fucking curiosity_ , and God, he’s the worst boyfriend, he should have listened, he should have—

Somewhere, in the distance, a piano plays.

Salesa.

Despite his lack of vision within the country house, Jon has the convenient power no avatar has robbed him of: He can hear just fine. So he follows the dulcet tones down the hall, down the stairs that lead into the foyer, and part of him is filled with relief that he at least recognizes it. Which means, if he remembers correctly, there should be another set of hallways and rooms. He retraces the steps that Annabelle led them through when they entered, grateful that his memory isn’t fuzzy, despite having slept for who knows how long. He locates the double doors that they entered, and he hears the distinct sound of the piano playing a song on the other side. There is nothing satisfactory about the way he knocks both doors open, though part of him knows Martin would have been morbidly impressed, as he often is.

Except Martin doesn’t look very impressed at all, where he sits in the parlour with a cup of tea. His eyes widen, shocked at the display. Annabelle’s face is carefully schooled into a neutral expression, though it doesn’t get past Jon that the side of her mouth twitches, if only for a moment. Salesa has stopped playing, now, and looks at Jon with something like surprise, something like amusement.

“That door is expensive, I’m not sure you could afford it if you broke it,” he comments, fitting of someone that used to deal with artefacts. Jon almost laughs, because that should be a past tense. A past tense because Mikaele was supposedly dead. Then again, leave it to Jon to have to not only deal with the living avatars, but the dead ones as well. Or rather, the ones that faked their death? He’s not sure which is more likely, in this case. He snaps out of his thoughts to the sound of Martin’s voice, far away and odd.

He hears, rather than feels, that he collapses onto the floor. His leg throbs from the impact, but it’s hard to zone back into reality enough to really be bothered by it.

Martin is by his side in seconds, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him back to reality for good. His eyes struggle to find Martin in front of him, but when he does he reaches up and grasps at his shirt.

“What’s wrong? Jon, talk to me.”

“I thought you were gone,” Jon replies, though his voice feels off. He wants to try again, say it firmer, so as to not worry Martin, but the damage is done. The taller man pulls him close to his chest, and though it’s careful, the breath is still knocked straight out of Jon. It’s okay. Martin is okay. Part of his brain is still working overtime, anxious that something is wrong, off, that this might not be the man he loves at all. But he’s warm and big and envelops Jon in a blanket of safety, so it suddenly feels hard to care. He moves his arms upwards, to grasp onto Martin’s back instead. It is only when he hears a chair push back, and footsteps come closer, that he has the gall to feel a bit embarrassed.

“This is very sweet,” Mikaele Salesa states, and Jon glances up at him from where they’re sitting on the floor. Martin only reluctantly begins to let go. “But wouldn’t you two like to get clean, and to get some food in you? Now that you’ve had your rest, and all.”

Part of Jon is still stressed, still paranoid, but suddenly he’s awfully aware of how long it’s been since he’s… done anything like that, if he’s being honest. Martin gets up, though his hands don’t leave Jon, and instead he helps him onto his two feet, making sure he doesn’t put too much weight on the wounded one.

“I’ll stick with you,” he reassures, and Jon is forever surprised by Martin’s ability to just know. To just know what he needs. 

“I guess it doesn’t sound awful.” Jon’s eye still flickers to Annabelle, who has now hidden half her face behind her own cup of tea. One of her brows raise in question. He shakes his head. Whatever nefarious plot he can imagine she’s cooking up, it can wait. She gets up, puts the cup carefully down on her saucer. She’s wearing some vintage dress that seamlessly blends in with the country house, and part of Jon feels out of place in his now dirtied slacks and green hunting jacket that he borrowed from Daisy’s safehouse. Annabelle pays it no mind, though, and walks toward the parlour doors.

“Allow me to show you the way,” she states, and Jon chooses to ignore the gleam in her eye, though it sends a cold chill down his spine.

The hallways are much less convoluted now that it doesn’t feel like he’s running from anything. She leads them to a bathroom that is as elegant and ridiculous as the rest of the house. It’s lavished in reds, and there are enough windows to brighten up the room. At the sight of the bath itself Jon nearly collapses again, if only from the sheer anticipation that he might experience hot water again. Martin snorts, which tells Jon it clearly must have shown on his face how relieved he is. Annabelle gets the faucet started and looks under the cupboard for a few hotel sized bottles of different soaps. She leaves them with a nod and a smile that may or may not have been genuine. Jon wants to bet on the latter but says nothing. Martin, on the other hand, seems to have lost all his distrust. He’s tearing off his sweater. The squeak that leaves Jon is loud enough that it makes Martin turn back around, looking at him with surprise.

“Sorry, was I not—I kind of thought, you know, since you don’t want to be left alone. Uh—” He breaks off, and now that his shirt is off Jon can see that the redness reaches all the way down this his chest when Martin blushes. It’s a detail he was never aware he needed to know, but now he cradles it deep in his chest. “We can take turns! I don’t mind—It’s just, you know,” he continues, and Jon stops him.

“No, sorry, I just. It caught me off guard, is all. If you’re okay with it we can…” Jon drifts off, unsure. Martin shrugs.

“Only if you’re comfortable with it,” he replies, and that’s enough for Jon’s shoulders to sag in relief. There’s something about the idea that his comfort comes first, that there’s no pressure for anything other than a simple bath to get warm and fresh and clean. He nods, approving, and takes off his jacket. He hears Martin release a sigh of relief, and together they undress. It’s something that, logically, most couples would have already gone through, but it’s not like there’s much room in the apocalypse to undress and get comfortable. The water is reaching the brim now, forgotten by them both, and Martin rushes to turn it off before it can overflow.

It turns out to be little use, when the two of them in their fatigue forgetting about the concept of volume. The water sloshes around and onto the floor already as Jon reluctantly gets in, and when Martin joins him the weight of two grown men is enough to soak a large part of the floor. They both freeze completely still in the tub, before Martin catches Jon’s eye.

Their laughter echoes against the tiled walls.

It’s the absurdity over the situation, the concept of the apocalypse coming down upon the world and its would-be rescuers spilling water all over a bathroom floor. Martin’s giggle borders on the edge of cackling, and Jon has never heard his own laugh so clear, so genuine, at least not for a long while. He’s wiping tears from his eyes as he leans against Martin’s back, and Martin responds by cradling him in his arms, pressing a rare kiss to his temple. They relax as the hot water soothes their aching limbs, laughter descending into soft sighs of comfort and warmth.

Martin reaches for the bottles that Annabelle put in the corner, reading the labels with a furrow of his brow. Jon looks up at it, studying his features. Some odd part of him wants to touch every part of it, though even the most desperate parts of him realize that might seem weird.

“They’re not labelled,” Martin says, and Jon smiles in amusement.

“It’s not that important.” Or at least Jon doesn’t think so, but Martin shushes him.

“No, have you _seen_ how long your hair has gotten? I’m not depraving you of a good shampoo and conditioning just because Annabelle decided it’d be important to her grand and evil schemes.” He opens one of the bottles, pours a little onto his fingers and tests it on Jon’s hair. Jon isn’t sure what he feels, but it must be wrong, because he fetches another bottle.

Eventually he finds something that foams in Jon’s hair, and with satisfaction begins to apply it. Jon resolutely keeps quiet about the fact that both shampoo and body wash would have the same effect, delighting instead in the feeling. It’s blissfully quiet, even though Jon cannot avoid the all-knowing feeling leaking in through the cracks. Even if he cannot see anything at all about this place, he can still see the rest of the world, and part of it is still overwhelming when he slept for so long. Martin begins to whistle, though, and Jon closes his eyes, willing all of it away.

“We’re getting closer to London,” he says, despite the desire to not think about it.

“No,” Martin says, as though it must be true.

“We _are_ ,” Jon argues back, but Martin pulls gently at his locks. It really is getting long.

“That’s not what I meant. No apocalypse talk in the tub. You will sit here, and you will get your hair washed, and then we can talk about how far or not far we are from London later. I refuse.”

“But—”

“I can’t hear you over the sound possibility that I could put shampoo in your eyes and make it look like an accident,” Martin states matter-of-factly. Jon grumbles.

“You wouldn’t.” He looks up. Martin looks back. He would.

He makes Jon put his head under water long enough to get the soap out, and promptly realises that one round is not enough. So he puts more in, and Jon allows it, and after that Martin washes his own hair while waiting for Jon’s conditioner to set in. It’s all awfully domestic, and had you told Jon this would happen a few years ago he would have laughed spitefully in your face. Now, though, he’s just so happy to be here, if only for a while. To put the world on pause, for a bit. It feels like an awfully evil wish to have for the harbinger of the apocalypse. He doesn’t deserve this, not until he’s found a way to fix it all. But he knows that if he told Martin this he’d harshly disagree, maybe even to the point of argument. So instead he says something else.

“Thank you.” Martin’s hands still where they were gathering up Jon’s hair.

“For what?”

“Not allowing me to get too far into my head,” he replies simply. Martin’s completely quiet.

Then he wraps both of his arms around Jon, squeezing him like this might have been the final straw that forces him to kill Jonathan Sims. Jon leans back against him, shutting his eyes with an exhale. Martin holds onto him for a while, before pressing a kiss to his shoulder.

“Always,” he mutters. “Now you’re going to have to dunk your head again.”

They get out of the bath all wrinkly and warm, and Martin fuzzes over Jon with the big towels he finds in a closet. Their clothes are missing, and Jon vaguely wonders if Annabelle’s elaborate plan was stealing their clothes, before Martin glances outside and finds two sets of clothes. That is somehow more alarming, the fact that she has kept clothes around in both of their sizes. They get dressed anyway, preferring it to just streaking around a famous English country house. They seek out Annabelle and Mikaele together, finally locating the both of them in an open room with a large dining table in it. On it is various types of lunch foods, Mikaele himself digging into a charcuterie board, topping a cracker with some brie. Jon shoots Martin a questioning look as they sit down, and though Martin shrugs his shoulders, Jon doesn’t miss how he avoids all the sandwiches that have meat on them. Just as a precaution. Annabelle is sitting down, though she’s sipping another cup of tea instead.

Jon originally plans to just pick at some of the grapes, but the moment he pops one into his mouth he is reminded of how hungry he is, and twenty minutes later he and Martin have managed to clear half of the table. Salesa watches with a humoured expression, and allows them to eat without much for conversation. In fact, when Jon attempts it, he shuts him down.

“I have much to talk to you about, archivist, and we’ll get to it. But you’re in no state at the moment. Allow yourself and your partner a day to recuperate, to enjoy the peace. We have all the time in the world,” he explains. Martin sips his new cup of tea.

“I’m not sure we do,” he mumbles, but it’s deliberately lost into his cup. Jon resigns himself to leaning against his chair. He wants to object, but he is still exhausted, deep in his bones, and the idea of even a day of rest sounds so appealing. He’s emptied a few glasses of water, and so the hunger and thirst is sated. The tiredness remains, in a way, though. It makes sense, really, that they require more sleep, than, what? He glances out the window, at the sun hanging low in the sky. A night and half a day, it seems. Months without sleep require more recovery time than so. So he holds his tongue, and he allows their two hosts to clear the table. When Mikaele Salesa returns, he grins at Jon, and it puts him off in a major way.

“We have a library, by the way,” he states. Suddenly it’s less off putting. Jon feels like a child tempted by candy. He’s about to deny it with a waving hand, he clearly has better things to do than sit around and read books for the rest of the day, when Martin reads the look in his eye and gets up from the table.

“Come on, let’s go,” he says, and Jon begins to protest.

“No, I mean, it’s not necessary, you know,” he begins.

“I bet they have vintage ones,” Martin states innocently, and Jon is completely lost.

Turns out that Martin is correct. They weave back through hallways, this time aided by Salesa himself rather than Annabelle. They come to another set of wide double doors, and this time they’re both opened for the grandness of it, rather than terror. The room itself is all dark oak, dark and yet lit well by the grand window at the side. There are plush seats and tables to sit at and read, as well as a loveseat pushed against a corner for more comfortable seating. The library itself is covered wall to wall in what Jon fears might be first edition books, or at the very least third or fourth printing at the minimum, and he’s awfully scared to touch anything at all. It feels a bit like they might flake away the moment he lays his unworthy human hands on them (in the back of his mind, nagging like a tick, is the reminder that there can’t be much of him left that is human at all). Then Martin pulls a random book out of the shelf, and Jon looks at him with something like horror and awe.

“What?” Martin asks.

Jon hesitates, though he wrings his hands in thought. Martin catches on.

“Jon. Who is going to reprimand you for touching an antique book? Who is even going to reprimand you for _ruining_ an antique book? I sincerely believe there isn’t a single historian here to catch you.”

Jon relinquishes easily and starts skimming through the titles on the shelves. It’s really impressive, the amount of classics collected here. He wonders if he can truly take the time to appreciate it, when he doesn’t really feel like he deserves it. It’s hard to not be a bit self-deprecating when the world has tilted off its axis all due to you. You try to lose yourself if the copies of _Les Miserables_ and _To Kill a Mockingbird_. You try to channel the sense of wonder you would have felt before at the opportunity to be this close to something so valuable. It doesn’t really work, but then Martin is at your side with a rather hefty book, and you cannot help but smile at the title. Dostoyevsky’s _Crime and Punishment_. Martin is skimming through it, curiously.

“This sounds like the kind of book you’d read, you know, just to harm yourself a little,” he says, when he’s gotten through a couple of pages and noticed the heavy wording and ceaseless descriptions. Jon’s cheeks flush mildly, ad he averts his eyes.

“I hate to admit to you that I’ve reread this a few times, wrote a report on it, even.” Martin stares at him.

“…I respect and love you; you know that—”

“No, I know. It’s six hundred pages of Russian philosophy over morality, but it’s interesting, because Dostoyevsky was criticising the younger generation and their abandonment of Christianity, I don’t subscribe to that, obviously, and the idolization of the self, and—"

"Jon.”

“Hm?”

“I’ll let you take _Crime and Punishment_ to bed if you promise me not to recount to me the entirety of your secondary school book report.”

Jon mumbled something unintelligible.

“What?”

“It was a paper I wrote at Oxford, actually.”

Martin squeezes his hand once.

“Never change, Jon,” he says, grinning. Jon sighs, but there’s a soft smile on his face, and he takes the book from Martin. He abandons the shelves to sit down on the sofa, gently opening Crime and Punishment to begin reading through it. Martin arrives at his side not long after, clutching a copy of collected poetry by Keats. It’s wholly unsurprising, so stereotypically Martin in every way, and Jon leans his head on his shoulder to find a better position for prolonged reading. He can hear rather than see the smile on Martin’s face when he huffs gently, and together they begin skimming through their respective books. Jon isn’t exactly about to attempt to get through the entire book during the afternoon, and he can tell Martin is already analysing and reanalysing the very first poem on the page of his own book. He must have done that a dozen times already. Jon feels awful for ever not finding it endearing.

The sun starts setting across the yard outside, and it’s only surprises Jon in retrospect that he hasn’t experienced a sunset in a long while. More than likely it’s a trick of the eye, some sort of illusion to comfort the inhabitants of Upton House. It sets off the warning bells in Jon’s head again, reminds him of the cabin. It reminds him of that stifling sense of false security, the desire to never leave, to let yourself be stifled eternally in a building holding you hostage. But, logically, nothing has implied they cannot leave if they want to. Sure, Annabelle must have something planned, something that’s too hard for either of them to see through right now, but it’s not as though she’s ever been a particularly brute-force type of person. If she wants them to stay, it requires her to not show her cards yet. And so the two of them are technically allowed to leave right now. It adds a layer of security Jon wasn’t aware was so necessary to get some rest. Martin’s breathing is a steady force behind him, reminding him that it’s okay. It’s fine. They can stay a little longer. So he keeps skimming down the pages, snorting at a particularly lengthy paragraph of introspection. Martin looks at him curiously, but when Jon shows him the page to read, the humour is entirely lost on the poor man. It makes Jon release another chuckle, to see the frown form on Martin’s face as he tries resolutely to find the joke in the paragraph. Finally he gives up, and buries his face in Jon’s hair instead.

“I don’t get it,” he complains, and Jon puts a hand on the page to not lose his place.

“Well, it’s not a joke, it’s just that Dostoyevsky has this way of writing that is particularly—”

“As your boyfriend, I feel like it’s my duty to admit that none of this is going to stick with me.”

“No, I know, it’s not exactly easy to follow…” Jon trails off, fiddling with the page. Martin looks up from where he’s been buried against him.

“Oh, that wasn’t me telling you to be quiet, I’m just sorry if I never manage to absorb any of this,” Martin clarifies carefully. Jon looks up at him, wide eyed. “Feel free!”

And so Jon reluctantly starts up again, and then it changes to enthusiasm, and Martin listens with a gleam in his eye that Jon is perfectly aware has nothing to do with the topic at all. He couldn’t say when, but at some point they both doze off in the sofa, respective books forgotten in their laps. Jon can’t put a finger on how long they’re out for, but he does realize something rather inconvenient.

Once you’re past the relief of being able to sleep, and the first night of being completely blacked out, there’s suddenly room for nightmares again.

It all hits him at once, muddled together in creative ways that Jon does not have the sanity to appreciate. He sees Daisy in the coffin, but it’s not her anymore, not really. In the Buried there is nowhere to escape, not when she sinks her teeth deep into his shoulder. The pseudo-pain of it snaps him back to Nikola Orsinov, hovering over him, he’s tied down and helpless and there’s so much fear in him, he’s terrified of the wax and the fact that she wants to peel his skin apart, and this of course brings his subconscious to think about Tim. The hatred in his eyes was already keeping Jon awake before all of this, but now it poisons his head, reminds him that there are so many people who deserved better, who deserved to survive in his place. Not even on the cosmic scale of things, not even counting the many people who are suffering and in pain because of him. No, his dreams show him Sasha’s face, but he knows he cannot even be sure it’s actually hers, or some shameful caricature wearing her identity as a particularly well-fitting coat. It makes him sick, to think of all this, and he isn’t sure if he’s thrashing in his dream or in real life, but he’s currently chasing Martin through the Lonely and he just can’t reach, and then—

Then Martin’s real hands are on his shoulders, shaking him awake in the loveseat of the library.

“It’s okay!” he says, and it’s hard to hear anything when his head is swimming, but he does catch Martin’s soft voice, muttering against his temple. “It’s okay, I’m here, you’re okay.”

And Jon buries his face against Martin’s chest. If Martin hears the shaking apologies and the lump in Jon’s throat, he doesn’t say a word about it. There’s a knock on the wooden doors, which is redundant when they were left open, but Annabelle stands politely on the threshold.

“You’ve been here a while.” She looks up at the painted ceiling of the library. Jon hadn’t even noticed it. “Wouldn’t you like some dinner?”

Despite the ice in his stomach from the nightmare, both Jon and Martin realize with a start that they would. They’re starving again, suddenly.

Dinner is eaten with far more input from Mikaele’s side. He talks about his brief encounters with Gertrude, sometimes for business, sometimes in the halls of the Institute, when he had artefacts to sell. He speaks of all the odd things he has encountered, of how it was to work with Jurgen Leitner. When they finish their food he has recounted almost every mention of himself in the archive tapes, and Jon is unsure if he is more or less uncomfortable knowing that this surely _must_ be the real Salesa. There’s not a smidge of doubt about it. Martin is speaking half amicably with Annabelle, though there’s a strain in his voice that Jon recognizes means he’s nervous. It would have been charming if they weren’t in these specific circumstances. Annabelle and Mikaele still refuse to discuss any questions about the country house or how it has managed to remain so untouched, exchanging looks and confirming that it’s a conversation reserved for the morning, when they’ve had a chance to rest up. Jon mutters quietly to Martin that they might get strangled in their sleep, and Martin stifles a morbid little chuckle at the idea. If only because it would be very unlike Annabelle, to get her hands dirty like that. It’s a small comfort, to know your enemy.

They move into the parlour together, all four of them, and Mikaele Salesa takes his seat back at the piano. It’s both surprising and in character of him to be so enamoured by it, and Jon watches his hands slide across the keys with the familiarity of a professional. Annabelle gets them more tea, and Jon wonders if it’s partially a power play. A way to confirm she will never be caught twiddling her fingers in front of them. Annabelle asks Martin about his experience working at the Institute, as though she doesn’t already know all about it, but Martin entertains her with a smile. They recount some of the fonder memories, and Jon flushes red all the way down his shirt when Martin retells the story about how Jon had very heavily implied Martin could have been a ghost.

“How was I to know what you meant when you said you were _trapped in the Institute—_ ”

“I’m not blaming you! It was just, you know, out of character for you to be scared of a little haunting, you know?”

The talk dwindles gently as they move into the night, and though they slept for a bit in the library it wasn’t exactly a very restful sleep. Annabelle and Mikaele allow the two of them an early goodnight and offer to take them to their rooms. Jon refuses, remembering the way well enough, though he does not allow Martin to go back to whatever godforsaken room he was sleeping in last night, because he’s not about to have another fit over wondering where he might have lost his wayward boyfriend. Martin allows himself to be dragged the whole way there without complaint. He knows what Jon is thinking, how concerned he was in the morning, so he allows Jon to take him to the room he woke up in, closing the door behind them.

Jon sits down on the bed, letting out a sigh. Martin opts to stand in the middle of the room, eyes fleeting back and forth.

“Do you want to talk about the nightmare, or…”

“I’d rather not,” Jon says, deflating where he sits, till he finally falls back on the bed. “It wasn’t so different from the ones I had before The Change, anyway.”

Martin frowns. “Really? Or, rather, that’s completely understandable! You just never really talked about it.” Jon reaches out a hand, grabbing toward Martin like a particularly insistent toddler. Martin crosses over the room to lace their hands together, and Jon pulls him on top of him. There’s a loud protest from Martin, but Jon only buries his face in Martin’s sweater, drowning in the feeling of intimacy, forcing the anxiety out of his bones.

“There wouldn’t be any point in talking about it, would there?” he asks, muffled in the fabric. “I’m not about to whine about my issues, God knows others probably have it worse."

Martin leans up on his elbows to look at him. “Jon. Are we really going to have the talk about how you don’t have to suffer more than others for it to be okay?”

“That’s not the point, I just don’t think I’ve really earned the right to—”

“To what, be emotionally vulnerable? To have a mental health? Jon, I think the amount of things you went through are enough to bottle and fuel a city like they do with screams in _Monsters, Inc._ , I think you’ve earned the right to have a nightmare or two.”

Jon looks up at him. “ _Monsters, Inc._ was your best example here?” Martin hits him gently over the head. 

“First of all, I was a child at some point, and so were you. I know you must have watched that movie. And second, I’m not a therapist. I’m just trying to comfort you, here. It’s not going to be an award-winning speech by any margin.”

It’s enough to make Jon grin stupidly, and Martin’s defensive frown turns into another smile. He decides it’s a good moment to start peppering Jon’s face in kisses, each one stamped with another statement.

“You,” a kiss across his nose. “deserve,” one pressed against his temple. “to speak,” a couple on each cheek. “about not feeling okay.” And the last one lands square on Jon’s lips, to his own delight.

“Okay, okay, the prosecutor makes a compelling case, I get it!” Martin seems satisfied, and gets up to start taking his sweater off.

“Come on, it’s nice to get a break and all, but I’d like it if we could actually get a night of rest before we find out this is all an evil plan to trap us in torment in an old National Trust country house, please.”

“That’s a rather big ask of you.”

“I know, I know, I’m getting really spoiled over here.”

Undressing is a task that ends up requiring dual effort, as Jon keeps pausing to bring up some point or other about the intricacies of Upton House, and with it the intricacies of the fact that he can’t See anything in it. Martin ends up pulling Jon’s sweater over his head while he’s making some sort of comparison to how Elias couldn’t see him back when he was kidnapped by Orsinov, and simultaneously Martin shuts that train of thought down before it can cause him to spiral any further.

They delve under the sheets together, Jon subtly leaning close to feel Martin’s warmth, to feel that he’s there with him. Martin decides to entwine their fingers again, to give Jon a focal point, one to reassure him even if Martin drifts asleep. And he does, rather soon, breath evening out, the duvet rising and falling with him.

The concept of ‘drinking in a sight’ has adopted a whole new meaning in recent years to Jonathan Sims, obviously. And watching Martin Blackwood sleep beside him in the bed is nothing short of fulfilling in the best and worst of ways. Part of him feels like he can’t record the details quick enough in his mind, like they might slip away if he doesn’t pay close attention. The line between admiring and devouring has blurred somewhere along the edges, and it scares him. But perhaps it’s not so bad if Martin doesn’t mind. Perhaps he’s earned the right to be emotionally vulnerable, like Martin said. When he’s almost entirely sure that Martin is dead asleep, he lifts their clasped hands, and presses a kiss to the knuckles. Casual affection has always seemed so… illicit to him, and he’s not completely sure why. Perhaps he just has never gotten used to it, and perhaps he never will. But at least now, that the sun has set and everything is quiet, he can pretend. He can pretend that this is normal, that he can afford to love Martin without fearing he might lose him.

When he goes to sleep he knows he’s going to see them all again, the faces of people who have loved and hated him and both at the same time, and he knows he might wake up shaking. But for now, it’s okay, he can take this moment to breathe, and to not be the Archivist, but to be Jonathan Sims. Martin shuffles closer to him in his sleep, and the act kindles a small fire in his chest, something that feels so irrevocably and unrealistically _human_. He savors the emotion, the feeling of being just a person, holding onto another person who loves him and cares for him.

Jonathan Sims falls asleep in Upton House, thinking about very little but Martin Blackwood. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at two am and cried a bit! It was delightful. Comments and kudos are always so appreciated! Thank you for reading!


End file.
